On matters of African Americans and farming, many narratives have centered the ways in which enslavement, and an assumed progress “off the plantation” have contributed to the apathy or absence of black folks on the land. In this episode we hear from black farmers and scholars who are challenging those narratives, instead centering resilience, survival and activism at the core of historical narratives around African Americans and agriculture. 

Cider in the United States is having an explosive moment. Bolstered by a new generation of growers in California and New York, plus a thirsty generation of millennials, it is the fastest growing among all alcoholic beverage categories. In this episode we meet the makers and protagonists of this emergent movement.

When we think about food origins, often we talk about the movement of people, plants, animals and ideas. But the study of humans would be an incomplete one without the study of the clay and ceramic vessels, one of humankind’s earliest innovations. If pottery is a conversation with the past, archeologists are our interpreters. Today we’re talking to a whisperer of ancient history, culinary archeologist Jerolyn Morrison. Jerolyn has a Ph.D in archeology specializing in the cooking vessels of...

Ntsiki Biyela was the first black woman in South Africa to become a winemaker. Andre Mack was the first to be awarded the Best Young Sommelier in America. Keba Konte is the largest African-American owned coffee roaster in the world. In this episode of Point of Origin, we learn about the pressures and pride that go along with being the first or only one of your kind.

The sacred wild rice that grows on the water. ​Hundreds of years ago, the people called the Anishinabek, were visited by several prophets, two of which told them that people with white faces were going to be coming across the ocean and they needed to leave their homeland and travel westward to the place where the food grows upon the water, or risk being destroyed. So they followed those prophecies, and though it took a few hundred years, they made their way down the Saint Lawrence River and...

When we talk about terroir, it’s usually in the context of wine, and the human and environmental conditions that influence the characteristics. But on a recent visit to California, writer and cook Jasmine Lee began to ask questions about this framing, inspired by an heirloom variety of rice with a beautiful name called, Kokuho Rose. Jasmine, who comes from a lineage of rice merchants in Hong Kong, wondered  whether it was possible to think about expressions of the land; ie, terroir, without...

All fruit come from flowers, but not all flowers become fruit. Once you start to see the two as the same, the world of both grow more interesting. Dates, honey and saffron: we’re gettin sweet and spicy with stories from Egypt to Iran. In episode 3, we meet Leila Elamine of The Recipe Hunters, Gordon Hull of Heidrun Meadery, and spice expert Ethan Frisch of Burlap and Barrel.

Point of Origin host Stephen Satterfield speaks with salt makers in Iceland about why they've decided to return back to the land.

Point of Origin is about deepening our relationship with food and travel. It's about learning to unlearn and relearn. And since we're just meeting, we want our inaugural episode to properly reflect who we are and the work we make. Without much difficulty we identified preservation both in a literal and cultural sense as the best way to do that. Our work affirms our belief that women are the architects of preservation. So it's fitting that we introduce ourselves with three women -- an...

Point of Origin is a podcast about the world of food, worldwide. From the makers of Whetstone Magazine. Each week we travel to the countries, cultures and culinary traditions that gave birth to what we eat and drink. The in-depth conversations and field recording are augmented by new explorations of ingredients and dishes in the context of their culture of origin. In addition to taking listeners around the globe, whether it’s to Indonesia for coffee or India for turmeric, the show’s mission...